Jan Exton
Thirteen years ago, Jan Exton’s 405 hectacre property along the Broken River flooded. The water rose almost to her doorstep, her garden was entirely under water and there was no way of knowing how much worse matters might get.
“When you hear the warning come over (the radio) that there’s serious flooding, you know you are in for it,” Mrs Exton said.
“But you just don’t know what’s yet to come.
“You are always waiting for the peak.”
When a helicopter flew over head during the 1993 flood, the 61-year-old imagined how dramatic the scene would have appeared from above.
The district was covered with water, houses would have appeared stranded and isolated. “We had a tractor and a truck parked in the drive in case we needed to drive out,” she said.
“And there was a boat tied up around the back.”
The sheep had been moved to higher ground and a number of cars were parked further up the road.
“There’s a lot of controversy about whether to stay or go,” Mrs Exton said.
“We’ve always decided we would stay.”
She said there was a good network among landholders along the Broken River who keep in touch during critical times.
“You find out from upstream what’s happening and can give people downstream a call.”
Mrs Exton has lived on the Broken River all her life and has battled floods for as long as she can remember. She grew up on a property in Kialla, bordered by the Broken River, which was later developed to become Kialla Lakes. She remembers driving to school during the 1956 floods from the family farm to Shepparton Primary School on a Ferguson tractor.
Mrs Exton and her husband Geoff, a keen fisherman when time permits, now live upstream near Caniambo. The pair farm prime lamb, grow summer crops, wheat and maize. They have raised four children on the farm and now have eight grandchildren.
Mrs Exton said she viewed the river as a source for irrigation and recreation. She has seen waterway management techniques change over the years and remembered a time when the rivers were cleared of snags in an effort to create better flows.
“But now, because of soil erosion, they don’t do that,” Mrs Exton said.
“It’s important to look after the river. It provides our income, our business.”
While visitors to the property are impressed by the River Red Gums and private strip of water, Mrs Exton said she simply cannot imagine life without it.
“Perhaps we don’t appreciate it enough because we have never left the property,” she said.
“We just know it’s there.
“It is part of us.”
